Phone Call
by ButtercupHarmony
Summary: Charlie has trouble making a phone call. Set preSeason 1


It was only a cell phone.

He had been a child prodigy. Graduated from high school at the age of thirteen. College at seventeen. He had a security clearance at the highest level, due to his consulting work with the NSA. He'd done projects that had helped the world in ways his brother could only dream of. But he found himself unable to make a simple call.

The evening had gone normally enough, as normal as the family could muster at this time. It had been barely a month since the funeral of the woman whose terminal illness had brought his emotionally and physically distant brother back to LA, back to the life he had been eager to run away from the first chance he got. He himself wasn't that far removed from the three months he'd spent locked in the garage, working on an unsolvable math problem. He knew his father and brother didn't understand. They'd never understood the math that had so easily captured his attention as a child. He honestly couldn't remember a time when he wasn't immersed in some equation or another.

His first indication that something was wrong should have been when Don had opted for a glass of water at dinner. He'd been grading tests when his brother walked in, with a weary and worn down expression on his face. That in itself wasn't all that unusual. It seemed like that expression was a permanent fixture on his brother, slowly growing more intense every time Charlie had seen him. Which has happened less and less over the past month. Guess he figured that now that the reason for his move of almost 800 miles, across two state lines was gone, his family didn't need him anymore. It was better than the alternative, that Don hadn't, and still didn't, need them. Charlie half-expected Don to leave again. In the meantime, Don came over for dinner a couple times a week, usually when he had a break between his cases at the FBI. Usually he grabbed a bottle of beer, a way to start winding down, processing whatever he had seen that day.

But tonight he'd grabbed a glass of water, and Charlie hadn't thought anything of it. His mind was preoccupied with his one of his lower level classes. Now, at two in the morning, he reflected, his older brother was clearly preoccupied with something. Not that he'd ever share. "It's classified, Charlie." Or, "You don't have the security clearance Charlie." Talk around the dinner table had revolved around math. Math and the peer review that was coming up. At the time, he knew that his brother wasn't really paying attention to him, which irritated him. Would it kill Don to at least pretend to be interested in what his family was doing? It had been the same when Don was in New Mexico. Phone calls rarely ever happened, and Charlie was largely unaware as to what his brother was up to. He doubted his brother had dated anybody- surely his grandkid-crazed parents would have mentioned the mere _possibility _of getting their greatest wish. Not to mention the fact that his brother was a complete workaholic.

After dinner, Don had helped his father clean up while Charlie went back to his tests. He could hear their voices talking, but he pushed that out of his mind. He was good at pushing the unwanted aspects of his environment out of his mind, to concentrate on his math. After a while they came out of the kitchen, Don looking even more tired and his father looking worried, but he didn't notice. After watching some mindless sitcom, Don had gotten up to leave. Charlie remembered that his father had tried to get his eldest to spend the night, but Don had deflected the offer. He had shut the door firmly behind him, and after a moments pause Alan turned to a crossword. When Charlie finished grading the tests, he realized that his father wasn't paying attention to the crossword in front of him. When he asked what was wrong, Alan had looked up at him and gave some cryptic answer about Don being stubborn. Looking back down at the crossword had effectively ended the conversation, but it had gotten Charlie's mind running. What had happened? Surely Don couldn't have gotten hurt at work, because they would've gotten a call from Don's partner. But what else could it be? His father and brother must have fought over something. Although it was the only logical explanation, something wasn't adding up. Very few problems had been unsolvable for him, and he was confident that this wouldn't be any different. Once presented with a problem, he usually collected the data needed to solve it, however he needed to.

Which was why he was here, in the solarium, holding his cell phone at two in the morning. He knew his father wasn't going to give anything up. If he'd thought about it, he'd probably realize that Don was even less likely to talk about whatever was bothering him, but Charlie wanted answers. And the late hour didn't bother him, he knew Don would be up. His thumb wavered over the send button. They obviously didn't want him to know. Probably didn't think he could handle it. Some books that he'd left in the solarium caught his eye.

Charlie loved his brother. He'd once overheard his parents talking about the two of them, and how Margaret had thought that Charlie hero-worshipped his brother. And maybe he did. He'd been so proud of his bother when he began playing for the Stockton Rangers. He'd been proud of his brother when he got accepted into the FBI. Why wasn't Don proud of him? Wasn't all he accomplished enough to win his brother's approval?

He sighed as he hit the End button. Don obviously didn't want him in his life. Besides, it was late, and he had a lecture at eight AM.


End file.
